A new out-of character essay by yours truly, published today in Big Hollywood - Andrew Breitbart's recently launched project for Hollywood conservatives and anyone interested in the interaction between culture and politics.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Four hundred years ago, Miguel Cervantes described an archetypal delirious fruitcake who wanted to change the world by turning the clock back to the idealized Utopian times that never really existed. Imagine what Cervantes would write today about the futility of his satirical effort, if he were to learn that four centuries later, a whole movement would arise that emulated his loony character and elected one of their kind as the leader of the free world.

~

Some conservative commentators are demonstratively wishing President Obama well. My heart admires their good intentions, but as I watched Obama's inauguration on TV, my mind couldn't help but ponder the possible consequences thereof.

As someone coming from another country (ex-USSR) I don't participate in racial debates nor do I want to. Being post-racial is fine by me. So let's accept Obama's post-racial premise, leave the issue of melanin content aside, and judge the man solely by the content of his agenda. And the more I look at Obama's agenda the more I realize that wishing him well is like wishing luck to Don Quixote in wrecking the windmill that feeds me and my family.

It's not a matter of taste. The spectacle of a bombastic crackpot in medieval armor poking his lance at random objects is disquieting if you own and operate an industrial facility. It sends thrills up your legs if you share the noble hidalgo's conviction that the perfectly functional, cereal-grinding, income-generating windmills are the embodiment of evil, spreading death and destruction. As far as popular entertainment goes, I've seen worse. But when Don Quixote organizes a community to fight windmills and receives massive support, anyone with a job should be worried. When he becomes president with a popular mandate to wreck windmills at taxpayers' expense, using the government apparatus, hope becomes all but absent.

Being light on details, Obama's inaugural speech briefly remunerated his views - which we already knew from his previous comments, associations, voting record, and cabinet appointments. Here is a partial list of the windmills he pledges to fight:

Windmill #1: Greed is bad for the economy. Greed is a known "progressive" code word for the freedom to keep what you earn - the sort of freedom that made the United States the economic wonder of the world. To be fair, during the presidential debates McCain also attacked greed in rather quixotic terms, although next to Obama he sounded more like the simple-minded Sancho Panza.

Windmill #2: Lack of government control is bad for the economy. The ones out of control here were the Democrat politicians who created corrupt government-sponsored companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, later defending them to the death against Republican calls for stricter oversight. At the same time they overburdened the banking industry with Utopian requirements to give mortgages to people who couldn't pay them back - a quixotic move that sparked the current economic meltdown.

Windmill #3: Partisan discord must give way to "unity of purpose." A debate between political parties is healthy for a democracy. The trouble is, the debate itself became toxic when Obama's own party was hijacked by leftist radicals whose idea of unity is the suppression of dissent. If we unite with them for that purpose, it will be the end of American democracy. Observe examples of political unity in Cuba, North Korea, and Hollywood. One-party rule was stipulated in the Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution that singled out the Communist Party as the leading and inspiring force of the Soviet people. We know how that ended.

Windmill #4: Wealth creation must give way to wealth redistribution. "Without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and ... a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous." In real life, free market favors everybody who participates in it. Excessive regulations give unfair advantages to large corporations that can swallow the extra cost while their smaller competitors will choke on it. This stifles competition, reduces economic opportunity, lowers the quality of life, and spreads misery. In the end the elites remain prosperous while everybody else is worse off. Quixotic policies always result in the exact opposite of the original intentions. The only winner here is the growing government bureaucracy.

Windmill #5: Discipline the government bureaucracy. "And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day." It's what Leonid Brezhnev also said when he figured Khrushchev's liberal reforms had unleashed government corruption that had been previously held in check by Stalin's rule of terror. Let's face it - terror is the only way to run a state-owned economy effectively; that's why Stalin kept his apparatchiks trembling with fear and waking up at night in cold sweat. Without the show trials and executions, to manage an army of sticky-fingered bureaucrats became a gigantic windmill that the country had been fighting for a few decades before it collapsed from exhaustion. The moral here is that, short of the gulag, nothing can control the corrupting powers of an exponentially-growing government bureaucracy. Attempts to fight it will only result in a quagmire. The obvious answer is to stop feeding this monster, by removing the unessential regulating functions; the government will deflate to a manageable size and will become people-friendly again.

Windmill #6: Finance government construction projects by taxing private industries. Talk about "meeting the demands of a new age." Throw away your computer and grab a shovel - the future is here! Putting government in competition with the private sector helps neither, but corrupts both. FDR tried this on a massive scale; his well-meaning programs turned a recession into a depression, prolonged the suffering, and delayed the recovery by a decade. The subsequent lionization of FDR for this man-made disaster could only occur in a mindset where good intentions mean everything, and the results mean nothing - a classic example of quixotism.

Windmill #7: Ward off the specter of Global Warming. "We will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet." Nice try bundling terrorism with Global Warming, but no cigar. While the industrial impact on climate cycles remain a questionable hypothesis, its ideological underpinnings are getting more and more visible. Not two weeks ago Obama created the position of global warming czar and gave it to known socialist radical Carol M. Browner, whose solution to any world problem is the curbing of capitalism and shrinking the economy. Swapping Karl Marx's "specter of communism" with a more convenient "specter of a warming planet" may have changed the lyrics, but the song remains the same.

In this light, Obama's promise to "restore science to its rightful place" is merely a code phrase for the politicization of science. In the USSR, where scientific consensus was created by government mandate, politicization of science resulted in a colossal waste of national resources on absurd agricultural hoaxes, while state-appointed "scientists" denounced the emerging cybernetics as a "bourgeois hoax." Every single one of these people acted out of good intentions.

Windmill #8: Global poverty exists because the US taxpayers aren't throwing enough money at it."We can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect." If global poverty still exists after trillions of dollars in foreign aid over the decades, shouldn't we already start looking for the root of the problem elsewhere? Say, not in the lack of donations, but perhaps in the despotic quasi-Marxist regimes that cause poor nations to stay poor? A bizarre quixotic-despotic symbiosis has emerged, for example, in Africa, where well-meaning Western activists and politicians are promoting socialist reforms and nationalization of resources - while local despots, who otherwise couldn't care less about Marxism, find this system very useful in maintaining power and keeping populations in economic serfdom.

As long as everything is owned and governed by the state, the head of such a state automatically becomes an absolute monarch, owning and governing the entire land and its people. Such governing typically consists of stealing foreign aid, pilfering the country, looting the neighbors, and fighting off coup after coup, led by an endless swarm of similarly inclined wannabe despots, who want their share of foreign aid, gold, diamonds, or whatever else the educated Western geologists happen to find in that God-forsaken, state-owned land. No such despot will ever step down voluntarily, because that would make him like everybody else in his country - dirt-poor and vulnerable to abuse from the new despot.

Perhaps, in order to eliminate bloody civil wars in Africa and elsewhere, Obama could throw a few billion of our dollars at a posh retirement facility for tinpot dictators that would help them soften the blow and deal with psychological stresses, thus facilitating a peaceful transition of power from one crook to another. A better solution, of course, would be to introduce those countries to capitalism with its freedoms, incentives, property rights, and the rule of law - but apparently this is too ignoble a prospect for a soaring quixotic mind to consider.

* * *

These are the facts that Americans, of all people, should be able to recognize as obvious. How did it happen that the usually realistically-minded Americans not only elected a man who is withdrawn from reality, but overwhelmingly wish him to succeed in carrying out his fallacies?

The answer is probably in the changing nature of our age and its heroes. How it is changing and why is being increasingly determined by those who set the tone in the American popular culture.

Obama's popularity indicates that a new archetypal American hero has emerged - a sentimental, selfless idealist, preoccupied with perceived crises and injustices - real or imaginary - and is determined to fight the cynics for the people's right to have good intentions - consequences be damned.

In his speeches, Obama often derides cynics, positioning himself as the ultimate anti-cynic, which is also how Don Quixote is viewed in today's popular culture - the same popular culture that for several decades has been a plaything in the hands of liberal trendsetters in Hollywood, TV, and mass media.

Apparently even celebrities, who spend their days pushing the limits of egotism and degeneracy, have moments of clarity and feel an occasional need to redeem their meaningless existence. But to pause and rethink their lives, grasp the reality, and get out of the rut may be too much to ask from people whose idea of happiness is to snort cocaine off oneanother's buttocks. Instead, they engage in what they perceive as the opposite of cynical depravity. So they start pushing the limits of selfless idealism. That's when they donate to radical groups and politicians, make movies about Che Guevara, and act as spokespeople for ultra-liberal causes.

Never mind that what they see as the opposite of degeneracy is just a mirror reflection of the same old rut. Reality has never been their strong suit. Nevertheless, their quixotic efforts have already shaped a culture of scatterbrained idealism that trumps reality. Last November, millions of consumers of this culture gasped and decided that it would be very cool to elect, not the real man, but a cultivated archetypal image of a well-meaning, starry-eyed dreamer, who they hope will somehow help them avoid taking responsibility for their own lives.

Compare a modern liberal to Don Quixote, and he will take it as a compliment. In my years of living in America, I have met a number of people who proudly claimed they were fighting windmills - a generic code phrase meaning "actively working to undermine American cultural, social, military, and economic institutions." Destroying property and sabotaging business operations made them feel good, as each imagined himself a noble hidalgo, fighting the powerful and defending the oppressed masses.

One might conclude that in their feverish Marxist brains, the story of Don Quixote was about a glorious rebellion against imperialist powers by a romantic freedom fighter with no life (his female comrade thought he was a Trotskyite), and so he took on the revolutionary road to utopia, struggling for social and economic justice, liberating the oppressed, and destroying means of production privately owned by capitalist exploiters.

They didn't believe me when I said that Cervantes named his protagonist after the horse's ass, using Catalán slang for it, that "mancha" in his full name also meant "stain" (as on one's honor), his horse's name Rocinante meant a "reversal," and the novel itself was actually a satirical farce about a mentally disturbed retrograde, whose fight was against societal progress and the human nature itself.

It's only fitting that people who are withdrawn from the reality end up misjudging the history of thought and societies. Another seminal book that the quixotic left has completely misconstrued is 1984, but that is a whole different story.

Let me put it in terms that a Marxist can understand: the original Don Quixote makes fun of a fossilized remnant of the feudal era, who is confused by rapid social changes and the emancipation of the working man. He is sickened by the idea that a lowly commoner who works for a living has suddenly grown more important than he - a blueblood who has neglected his estate, squandered his fortune, and spends his days in bed reading chivalric novels. So he escapes into a fantasy world of romanticized chivalry, courting a woman who thinks he is a crackpot, and destroying property of a hard-working miller because it makes him feel good to imagine that he is defending humanity from evil.

In this sense, Don Quixote is an ultimate liberal elitist who despises the bourgeois class that feeds him, feels nostalgic about the idealized past when benevolent kings bestowed favors upon the destitute subjects, and treats other people as mere objects of his exaggerated emotions, in complete disregard of their true nature.

To continue in Marxist terms, the story is an allegory of the painful reaction the discarded nobility had to the breakup of feudalism, and the rising overall prosperity brought in by the new class of capitalist entrepreneurs who were happy, well-fed, and held their head high, despite their obvious lack of grooming and heredity. These insolent former peasants ridiculed the idea of having a benevolent lord protector to care about their needs - which was what our anachronistic "knight-errant" was offering.

As if disrespecting the bluebloods was not enough, the new bourgeois class defaced the landscape with clusters of ugly, prosaic windmills that squeaked and creaked, increasing the number of well-fed, freewheeling plebeians, and decreasing their collective dependency on the charity of the powerful - or, for that matter, on anything else larger than themselves.

In today's industrialized, world old windmills may be seen as sentimental relics of a bygone, bucolic era. But in the early 1600s they were as much part of an industrial landscape as power plants and oil rigs are today. Think of Big Oil as today's equivalent of Big Windmills.

Thus, Don Quixote's attack on a windmill was an emblematic act of resentment by a feudal diehard against the symbol of the newly-emerged capitalist system - a much more progressive, efficient, and successful socio-economic order that ushered in prosperity, equality, and individual liberty.

In a parallel development, observe Sen. Edward Kennedy's fight against power-generating windmills that threatened to ruin a bucolic view from his patrician Camelot mansion. You get the idea.

* * *

All things considered, wasn't the entire socialist movement, from the very start, a fearful, allergic reaction to capitalism and industrialization? Wasn't the longing for a powerful welfare state born from nostalgia for the idealized safety net of feudalism, with its certainty of social roles and obligations? Didn't the notion of a benevolent government official, caring about the helpless masses, originate from the romanticized myth of a noble lord caring about his loyal peasants - without the anxieties associated with freedom to make individual life choices? And wasn't it darkly ironic that apologists of such a backward, regressive idea chose to call themselves "progressives"?

What motivated and united the quixotic "progressive" elites was their impulsive, irrational loathing of the perceived materialism of the markets and the coarse, ill-mannered bourgeoisie, which had become the designated windmills of the new era. Free markets broke up the rigid social structure and fostered upward mobility, discarding the certainty that aristocrats would keep their wealth without having to work for it - and that they would not be out-shined by the dreaded "nouveau riche," which was the aristocratic slur for the "previously poor." Anyone's chances to succeed in life now depended on their abilities, rather than pedigree.

As life was becoming increasingly "unromantic," more commoners were enjoying higher living standards, hygiene, education, and improved life expectancy. Industrial innovation steadily reduced the share of stupefying hard manual labor and increased the share of clean, professional, high-paying jobs, further shrinking the dependency of the commoners on the elites. Mass production brought down the prices, allowing every yokel to own things and travel places that used to be an exclusive privilege of nobility. And what did these oafs do to deserve it - except making, delivering, and marketing food, clothes, houses, tools, medicine, and the ugly prosaic machinery?

It was probably somewhere in the midst of such mental entanglements that a longing for a romantic anti-industrial hero first produced the "revised and improved" interpretation of Don Quixote - no longer a horse's ass, but a selfless idealist fighting the windmills of greed and materialism, impervious to the mocking and jeering of the unrefined cynics.

The key word here is "cynics." To understand the whole quixotic phenomenon, one must realize that the cynics in this case are the people who build, own, and operate windmills - and who don't want to see them leveled by some well-meaning loon. It is these people - not the elites - who make life possible. And if you talk to them outside of the contrived quixotic dichotomy, they don't sound like cynics at all.

"Cynics" is also the key word in Obama's code language, which stems from the same quixotic paradigm. Once you decipher the key word, other code elements begin to fall into place. Let's see...

"Change" signifies a backward movement to the idealized Utopian times that never really existed. More specifically, it can mean anything Obama's team does - from staffing the government with old Clinton drones to exhuming and reviving the corpse of the "Fairness Doctrine" - a mothball-smelling liberal zombie programmed to kill radio stations that broadcast dissenting voices

"Hope" means a conscious effort to fire up a quixotic vision of a government-appointed knight in shining armor, galloping to your rescue - and to spread this illusion to the scale of a massive hallucination.

"Crisis" denotes a fortunate turn of events when the frightened masses are more likely to elect a quixotic leader. Nothing bolsters collectivism like a stampede.

"Unity" means that everybody must play this game without exception. Which reminds me of the old Soviet make-believe game of building the communist society long after people had stopped believing in it, but continued to pretend out of habit, convenience, fear, or career prospects.

And so on.

If we pretend to play Obama's game for a moment, we may start seeing America as a downright mean country - without hope, in bad need of change, and overtaken by crisis that we can overcome if we only have unity.

In contrast, if we listen to the "cynics," we may learn that America is a land of optimistic can-do people, who disposed of the abusive nobility, created a government of, by, and for the people, and achieved unparalleled historic successes by taking a rational, freedom-loving, and self-reliant worldview to the farthest frontiers - in the process benefiting not only themselves, but also the rest of the world.

But such low-brow American "cynicism" couldn't completely vanquish the noble spirit of "social awareness" and "economic justice" - also known as collectivist feudal co-dependency, disapproval of individual judgment, fear of risk-taking, reliance on the charity of the powerful, and the romanticized utopian view of the collectivist past. This spirit had lived latent for many decades, fueled by socialist movements overseas, and fortified by the influx of immigrants infected by collectivist ideologies that, in the Old World, later metastasized into Fascism and Bolshevism.

But no matter what we call things, and what code words we use to disguise them, no matter how we try to change, alter, condition, accommodate, convert, modify, modulate, redo, restyle, reshape, transfigure, transmute, warp, invert, reverse, swap, transpose, or bend the public perception of reality, in the end we will still be living in the same old reality, governed by the same, unchanging, objective laws. And according to these unchanging laws, any quixotic intentions to curb the industries and rein in the materialistic capitalist class will, with absolute certainty, result in degradation and reversal of the real progress that the human race has achieved in the last few hundred years.

When the romantic concepts of "renewed spirituality" and "communal living" come in direct contact with the unchanging laws of human nature, they inevitably result in punishing the achievers, removing incentives, reducing productivity, shrinking industries, shortening life expectancy, decreasing skilled high-paying jobs, and increasing the share of stupefying hard manual labor. You wanted Obama to succeed? Here's your shovel-ready project.

The code word for this in Obama's Pig Latin is "progress." In case you were looking for the definition of cynicism, this is it.

When Obama talks about taking America into the 21st century, he insults everyone in this country who has worked hard to take it there, before they first heard his name. However, now that we've partially cracked the code, we can make an educated guess that the time where Obama intends to take us, is actually not ahead but behind us - the early 20th century, the era of first socialist revolutions and the Great Depression. But it might as well be 1605 when Don Quixote was first published.

Occasionally, Obama lifts his visor and speaks to the masses in plain language. The New York Times slavishly reports: "In his commencement speech last month at Wesleyan University, Barack Obama ... sounded an impassioned call to public service, and warned that the pursuit of narrow self-interest - 'the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy ... betrays a poverty of ambition.'" He continued, "Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential."

This is purely quixotic claptrap. Come to think of it, in today's world, Don Quixote might as well take up "progressive" activism and become a "community organizer." Or he could be an unfunny comedian with his own talk show on Air America Radio, campaigning for one of Minnesota's seats in the US Senate.

While the ascension of Don Quixote as a new American idol is a grotesque comedy of errors by itself, the political effort to take advantage of this cultural trend was hardly a coincidence.

Every utopian revolution ends up in corruption. The more altruistic the heroes are, the faster the plutocrats move in. If Obama really is the dreamy idealist from his own campaign poster - allergic to dirty politics, with his head fixed permanently above the clouds - then, naturally, the real power will be quickly divided among his crafty puppeteers. But let's give the newly sworn-in President credit - it takes an extremely shrewd politician to sense the cultural current, catch the wave, and ride it all the way to the White House the way he did.

Whether Obama is a starry-eyed dreamer, or a manipulative pragmatist preying on public fears, will be revealed soon enough. Whatever the case may be, his inauguration marks the beginning of a new age in America and the world. Some may call it the belated dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I call it the Age of Don Quixote.

I just don't support his mission.~Another Obama code word is "major"as in , Major speech, major announcement, major press conference,major topless swim photo shoot, major bowel movement...soooo self aggrandizing.

I just don't support his mission.~Another Obama code word is "major"as in , Major speech, major announcement, major press conference,major topless swim photo shoot, major bowel movement...soooo self aggrandizing.

Ah... Just as we Progressives support the troops but not the war. Brilliant!

How could you not mention this pearl of wiseguy wisdom in Windmill #4?:"Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our Common Good™"

What good is a watchful eye without the common good™ and visa-versa?Remember also, if it's not out of charity, it's welfare.The Welfare State is the Common Good and the surest route to hell is paved with good intentions.

Grab your shovels, Yes We Can!

For those who "No I Can't, Won't or just plain Refuse"...relax, just make sure you check all the correct "victim" boxes on all the mandatory government forms because yours is the promised land of milk and honey.....and government cheese.

Can I have some more Wealthspread™ for my government cheese sandwich?

BTW.... "Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath."Sorry your O'liness, only forty three. Groovy Grover took it twice.Who writes his shit? Certainly not a historian.

Comrades! Speaking of windmills, and thus of energy (well kinda), I want to announce my joy in keeping my thermostat set to only 63 degrees even though it is winter outside! I'm bundled in my sweater here, and keeping my fingers warm by tap tap tapping so that I may stay green (blue, actually) as our Dear Leader and the Goracle have commanded!

But citizens, I just want you to know that the most satisfying aspect of this personal sacrifice is knowing that what energy I save here in my humble abode can be used by our Dear Leader himself. I have heard that He sits in orchid-raising heat, in His shirtsleeves, in His Oval Office!

Yes, yes, I know that other esteemed leaders may find this a little warm for their comfort when they visit His inner sanctum, but the comfort of the Leader should be our utmost concern, for in His comfort, we know the TRUE meaning of sacrifice!

So remember, when He calls upon you to sacrifice, you may be warm in your heart knowing you are helping to ensure that He, at least, will never suffer!

Most progressive, Comrade Coco! Though I must wonder at the fact you still have your heat on... I have stopped eating lunch as we cannot eat as much as we want either. I've stopped driving my 17mpg Maserati to leave more gas available for the 8mpg Obamamobile. May we all band together in sacrifice for the common good!

However, I must warn my fellow comrades not to be so quick to assign vast insidious intelligence to a man who, in fact, may just be stupid.

We tend, as humans, to project upon our opposition a kind of "super-genius" that allows them to effortlessly conquer (when luck swings their way), and "have an unseen ulterior motive" (when vice versa...).

I second the major topless swim, only if the mammary assets are also major.

Valerius: Pure agitprop truth! Taxes are your patriotic duty! I cannot verify if my rubles can think or feel, but if they could, they would march gladly from my wallet to the People's Coffers (which means they make it back into my wallet, along with some of yours, too)!

CoCo! A medal for your patriotic insight! I offer you the People's Miniature Ice Stalactite for Climate Patriotism! I took it from another comrade in Michigan who gave his life for the cause of lower power consumption!

Vodkavich...8mpg Obamamobile? Hmmm, someone must contact the Commission for the People's Transportation. That number sounds way too efficient...

The gearing differential must be adjusted...that should be 8gpm. That way the Obamamobile will help our efforts to keep the people in their ghettos.

I second the major topless swim, only if the mammary assets are also major.

You're not going to get that, Herr DDR, at the White House pool with the NTE.BTW, how much longer must we put up with this insideous racist term "White House"? I thought that was supposed to have been taken care of by now.

<ConeOfSilence>Fantastic Comrade Red Square! You demonstrate a keen mind and firm grasp on the historical trend lines. Write on! I hope you get paid for it too.</ConeOfSilence>

Reactionary drivel from a sore loser! It's the Rethuglicans who want to return to the days of feudalism - witness the corporate oligarchy! BusHitler was the fool tilting at windmills - freedom in the Middle East, HA!

This essay is exactly the kind of divisive behavior that President Obama wants to stop. How can we make any progress if you nasty racists won't join the team? I suppose the President should just sit at the back of the bus and shut up? Your vicious rant is full of subtle racism.

Name-calling will not feed a single hungry child. Making light of our Leader and comparing him to fictional fools won't produce a single job in this, the worst economy ever.

I second the major topless swim, only if the mammary assets are also major.

Valerius: Pure agitprop truth! Taxes are your patriotic duty! I cannot verify if my rubles can think or feel, but if they could, they would march gladly from my wallet to the People's Coffers (which means they make it back into my wallet, along with some of yours, too)!

CoCo! A medal for your patriotic insight! I offer you the People's Miniature Ice Stalactite for Climate Patriotism! I took it from another comrade in Michigan who gave his life for the cause of lower power consumption!

Vodkavich...8mpg Obamamobile? Hmmm, someone must contact the Commission for the People's Transportation. That number sounds way too efficient...

The gearing differential must be adjusted...that should be 8gpm. That way the Obamamobile will help our efforts to keep the people in their ghettos.

DDR Kamerad,

A ride in the People's Monster Trabi would do better to fight claims of Poverty of Ambition.

In this light, Obama's promise to "restore science to its rightful place" is merely a code phrase for the politicization of science.

I already ranted about this somewhere in The People's Blog, but for me, Obama's reference to science was the most disturbing line in his speech. Only to "restore science to its rightful place," doesn't that mean that once upon a time it was removed from its rightful place? You can't restore something that wasn't there before. And just what is that place? Where do the rights come from? I can't find it anywhere in the Constitution, unless it's in that deluxe widescreen three-disc director's cut edition available only to liberals, that includes the separation of church and state and my right to an abortion.

To me, it's as if he means to replace religion with science, but your interpretation makes more sense. Maybe it's just the way he phrased it that bothers me.

Thanks, Pinkie. I fact, I was also bothered by the word "restore," but parsing this level of detail would've made the article too long for anyone to read. My understanding is that he meant federal spending on global warming programs, tightening liberal grip on public education, and financing embryonic stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cell research is the one science-related issue most frequently mentioned by liberals in trembling, outraged voices. But the real controversy here was never about the science itself but about who should pay for it - private companies or taxpayers. This brings up the moral issue of playing God with human life and whether people who disagree with it should be forced to pay for it. If the above is proven to be moral, than by extension it also proves government-sponsored abortions moral and thus removes the issue from the table.

I'm glad Obama didn't say "restore morality to its rightful place" because his views of morality are the opposite of mine. In full disclosure, I myself am ambivalent about banning abortions, at least in an early stage, but I believe that they NOT be paid for by people who oppose them.

My understanding is that he meant federal spending on global warming programs, tightening liberal grip on public education,

Can the Liberal grip get much tighter on public education, Red Square? (oh yeah, strangle it 'till it stops moving...)

In my 9 year olds Grammer book was a chapter on the truths of Global Warming, the wonders of recycling and how evil dads 10 cyl Excursion was. GRAMMER this was GRAMMER... I only hope that in Science he will be taught the world is only round because O made it so...

Otherwise, brillant essay, thanks! I a depressed and hopeless feeling now but it was well worth the read. (fer what THATS worth!)

Can the Liberal grip get much tighter on public education, Red Square?

Comrade Kiko,

The international, and therefor multicultural and superior, answer is: Yes! It is clear in higher education in Japan, where the foreigners are often liberal arts masters or doctorate holders who came here because they couldn't make it there; they are nearly all "progressive." Japan has been wealthy for long enough that its new wave of professors replacing the baby boomers (many of whom are leftists/statists as well, though rarely as utterly deranged as their US counterparts) often carry degrees (and ideologies) acquired or reinforced in the US, Canada, or Europe.

Something similar has happened in Taiwan. I expect South Korea is the same, with the added plus of brotherly love from the North and the insult of the presence of US forces. I once had a Korean exchange student in a class where the students were asked to take The World's Shortest Political Quiz. The version she took then had "Totalitarian" for "Statist." She was unhappy about the word totalitarian, but her argument was that, basically, experts should run everything because experts are, well, experts. Perfect progressive reasoning, although in quizzing her privately after class about North Korea, she said the DPRK is "scary" and "crazy."

The fact that almost anyone with a college degree can land a job teaching English (legally or illegally) in most countries in East and Southeast Asia means lots of fresh grads eager for exotica and full of their college talking points, straight out of the DNC handbook. The churn in English language schools in Japan is slowing, but they'll take anyone with a BA/BS to teach English; surely it is the same in RoK, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Some leave after a year or two, having had their fun and exotica (and, if spent in Japan, with reasonable savings or enough to blow a year drugged and sexed in Thailand), but others get the MA and shift into the university where they can use An Inconvenient Truth, Bowling for Columbine, and that thing about McDonald's to "teach English."

Does anyone produce an ESL or EFL textbook that doesn't have a leftist/statist slant? Not that I've seen, with the exception of books specifically meant for performing well on standardized fluency tests like TOEIC and TOEFL.

I would love to know what happens in the Persian Gulf countries' universities that import large numbers of foreign instructors. I bet An Inconvenient Truth gets a pass but Schindler's List does not. There are also, surely, no Christian or Mormon missionaries offering free English lessons (i.e., read the Bible). That might be a tad too multicultural.

I've seen English teachers rejected by foreign staff because the applicants had been missionaries. That's the kind of diversity I'm talking about, brothers and sisters!

If you've got a master's, there are opportunities that pay reasonably well. However, to be honest, German departments are suffering attrition. When a (usually Japanese tenured) German prof retires or dies, the position is either eliminated or given to another language. Chinese gets a lot of hype thus funding and staff. At some universities, however, German is still required for students in certain areas of the sciences as their second foreign language at university (typically English is #1 if not obligatory).

Ah yes Comrade Tovarich, I forgot all about multi-culturism. The teaching of the evils of white middle class christian types. No child left behind and all that!

Between my house and my ex wifes house is one of the premire liberal arts scools of the western US. There is a grocery store not far off campus that is a fun study in liberal mindedness. In the winter when I turn white (I am an artic hare I guess) my first marriage kids are ignored or glared at unless they are with my wife who is a dark polnesian, then people go out of their way to say they are beautiful and well behaved kids who look just like her. (this is sometimes in front of the ex whom they look more like...) If we go there and my ex has the baby with his brown hair, skin and eyes she will get the same thing. "oh he looks just like you, blah blah blah" She is blonde, green eyed and umm pretty darn white.

In the summer when I am brown (artic fox???) my wife and I will get complimented if we have any of the first marrige kids. Here is where the liberal mindedness study gets fun... IF its just me and my wife and its summer so we are brown, we are avoided. People clutch their purses, security follows us, people try not to get traped in the same isle. People speak spanish to me... OH I forgot, to say all these people are white ofcourse... Sometimes I wish I was pure white so that I too could be a true progressive and hate all that I was, all that I had and all that got me there.

My Armenian ancestry also makes me a "seasonal colored person." I can develop a dark tan in the summer but turn white again in the winter. One time a rather attractive young black woman from South Carolina asked me about my color and where the heck I was from. We wound up holding our arms together comparing our skin tones. That was followed by a very funny conversation but unfortunately for her I was married, so she never got to see my tan line. What kind of ancestry makes you a "seasonal colored person"?

If you've got a master's, there are opportunities that pay reasonably well. However, to be honest, German departments are suffering attrition. When a (usually Japanese tenured)German prof retires or dies, the position is either eliminated or given to another language. Chinese gets a lot of hype thus funding and staff.At some universities, however, German is still required for students in certain areas of the sciences as their second foreign language at university (typically English is #1 if not obligatory).

Yeah, Germany in general doesn't seem to be the powerhouse it was 20years ago. There was a lot of buzz after the fall of the wall that Germany would be the next superpower, but alas, the burden put on West Germany to get East Germany up to western standards has proven to be rather detrimental to the country as a whole. It might have been better to obliterate the former DDR and build from the ground up again,like the West did after WWII.

Still, it is a very useful language to know, especially in the tourist industry. Germans are very well traveled.

I also happen to know about five other useful languages (medieval German really doesn't count)--but they are all western languages. And my Japanese is limited to "yes," "no," "hello," and hara-kiri.

it is a very useful language to know, especially in the tourist industry. Germans are very well traveled.Every time there is a report about kidnapped tourists in Egypt, Yemen, or elsewhere in the Middle East, most of them happen to be German. Perhaps you can apply for a job in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

My Armenian ancestry also makes me a "seasonal colored person." I can develop a dark tan in the summer but turn white again in the winter. One time a rather attractive young black woman from South Carolina asked me about my color and where the heck I was from. We wound up holding our arms together comparing our skin tones. That was followed by a very funny conversation but unfortunately for her I was married, so she never got to see my tan line. What kind of ancestry makes you a "seasonal colored person"?

I've never heard the term "seasonal colored person". Thanks to some of the Cherokee genes I got from my mother's side of the family I guess that's what I am. It's really odd how we still hold onto archaic ethnic classifications in this country based on something as trite as skin pigmentation. My girlfriend's dad is considered African-American yet he has blue eyes and by the end of the summer my skin is a few shades darker than his. Her mom is the opposite. She is very dark. My girlfriend's and her siblings complexions are in the middle of of their parents. Yet, in a few places she has small white freckles which I guess is from the Caucasians in her dad's side of her family.

As a Scottish/Jewish/Aboriginal American, I know first hand what it feels like to have one's ancestors be oppressed. Wait a minute, they weren't oppressed... They would have begged for oppression! Oppression would have been an improvement! They were hunted down and killed!

Damn it! I thought I had no reason to feel any anger at the rising tide of Minority Victimization as Policy! WTF?!

Screw you and your "We were enslaved" bull$hit! We all have crap in the annals of our history we can point to as excuses for this and that! Get over it! Live for the now and the future!

Still, it is a very useful language to know, especially in the tourist industry. Germans are very well traveled.

I also happen to know about five other useful languages (medieval German really doesn't count)--but they are all western languages. And my Japanese is limited to "yes," "no," "hello," and hara-kiri.

Comrade DDR Kamerad,

You'd be surprised how far that Japanese vocabulary will get you. So many Japanese are rotated through foreign countries that you can find people who speak foreign languages well in quite unusual places. The elderly are the best in this respect, since they've likely had more experience abroad, had dealings with the Occupation GIs, were educated at a different time that was in some ways better (e.g., "If you don't work, you don't eat"), and old people tend to be more relaxed (or apathetic) anyway.

I have been told that in parts of Chile the number of German tourists is so high that people in tourism prefer German to English. There is some German Christian sect (Amish-like, I believe) or sects in parts of Chile that adds to the appeal of German.

Hey Tovarich, if anyone over there is looking for a good German instructor, let me know. I'll show them "progressive."

DDR Kamerad,

I get all the Deutsch lessions I need from my girlfriend, but, If you're willing to help, I could use some tips for dealing with a socialist European living in her own leftwing college environment who supports the CDU but talks like she's wearing a tinfoil hat whenever referencing Obama or anything having to do with the US. Thanks!

I am of Germanic desent with a dash of Scottish/English and Navajo. NOW if Abe Lincoln had some "colored" in him then there is a dash of that too.Funny thing...I am related to Lincoln on one side of the family and from the other I am related to John W. Booth.

This is one of the most well written and clearly stated political commentaries I have read in a very long time. The allusion to Don Quixote is not only brilliant, but is extremely appropriate to the situation. Rarely are we privileged these days to read a piece that puts the situation into such very clear focus.

Saying congratulations seems to be inadequate; instead I will say, OUTSTANDING!

I DENOUNCE THE GRAND REBBE OF MOSKOVA! For the thought crime of agreeing with the reactionary and retrograde article that was posted here solely as an object of vilification! (Welcome to the collective, Rebbe; this is just our way of saying "hello" and "grab a shovel.")

Thanks for the wisdom and the link. I think I'll need a decal for the Maserati. BTW, my very own People's Cube arrived today and I love it! Passed it around at work- surprisingly, some understood it! Maybe we'll see some new comrades soon...

I DENOUNCE THE GRAND REBBE OF MOSKOVA! For the thought crime of agreeing with the reactionary and retrograde article that was posted here solely as an object of vilification! (Welcome to the collective, Rebbe; this is just our way of saying "hello" and "grab a shovel.")

Comrade Betinov,

I am truly honored to be denounced corrected by the Party through your words; it actually caused me to drop my shovel. As a new Party member, I must learn to use more caution when speaking "out of character". I have reduced my ration of potatoes and vodka to show my repentance for having digressed from the Party line, and I will stand in the show with the shovel raised high and sing the praises of the Obamassiah (for at least 10 minutes).

Comrade Rebbe, you have shown remarkable progressive sentiment in your comments, and truly your willingness to self-sacrifice in the name of The Common Good™ shows you to be a loyal party member. I am sure that with a few more years of self-flagellation in the name of our glorious people's progressive socialist democratic reform committee's socialist republic of democracy and fluffy kittens and you may even be issued a slightly larger shovel!

Productivity does not always, or even usually, mean an upset of the balance of the collective; productivity is a measure of quantity, not quality, or even usefulness. For example, the collective shoe factory near my old collective farm was given a production goal by the party to produce 150,000 shoes per month. This was a hard goal to meet...unless all they produced was left-footed men's loafers in size 7. That meant they could produce without having to stop the line to change the lasts or readjust the machinery for different sizes or footed-ness.

So they produced 155,000 left-footed men's loafers in size 7 and not only met, but exceeded their production quota. This made the bureaucrats smile, because all they got was a report that the factory had met its quota. This made the plant manager smile, because the plant was allocated resources as if it were producing shoes of all sizes and styles. By limiting production to just this one, he got to skim some of the money provided to the plant for operations to remodel his dacha. This made the workers at the plant smile, because they got to make shoes the easy way and got to where they could do the job half drunk. The only people who "suffered" were the people who didn't need a left-footed man's loafer in size 7.

Just imagine the productivity we will generate when the same productivity model is applied to, say, health care!

Being as how I am currently enjoying socialized healthcare (VA Hospitals), I can assure the AmeriKKKan public that there exists no finer example of technology and wisdom (excepting outside the building)!

I am seen in a timely fashion (appointments set months in advance), asked precise questions as to my current health issues ("What's wrong?"), and given ample medication to keep me in a constant state of blissful pain relief (20 pills for a three month period).

I would gladly welcome the added strain work-load of my doctor imposed brought forth by the inclusion of my fellow collectivites!

Remember, sacrifice is patriotic, especially when others don't have to make it!

Being as how I am currently enjoying socialized healthcare (VA Hospitals), I can assure the AmeriKKKan public that there exists no finer example of technology and wisdom (excepting outside the building)!

I am seen in a timely fashion (appointments set months in advance), asked precise questions as to my current health issues ("What's wrong?"), and given ample medication to keep me in a constant state of blissful pain relief (20 pills for a three month period).

I would gladly welcome the added strain work-load of my doctor imposed brought forth by the inclusion of my fellow collectivites!

Remember, sacrifice is patriotic, especially when others don't have to make it!

My Dear Comrade Otdel,

As a current slave to TRICARE, I certainly have some understanding of the joy you experience. Being unable to set an appointment with a doctor and instead have to spend half of a work day sitting in a line of people for triage and subsequent treatment when all I want is to talk about insomnia or chronic back pain makes me understand the true value of socialized medicine. Never must I worry that my illness takes medicine away from someone else since the only medicine ever given is a fist full of 800mg Motrin from a bottomless barrel. I know I'll never support the capitalist evils of private medicine as referrals to specialists are about as rare as unicorns with vibrators for horns.

Just remember Comrade- our shortened life spans are for The Common GOOD!!

A good article in WSJ by an African-born author Dambisa Moyo, who is making the same case I made in Obama's Windmill #8

Dambisa Moyo

(MARCH 21, 2009)Giving alms to Africa remains one of the biggest ideas of our time -- millions march for it, governments are judged by it, celebrities proselytize the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for doubling the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that already goes to Africa each year.

Yet evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that aid to Africa has made the poor poorer, and the growth slower. The insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to higher-quality investment. It's increased the risk of civil conflict and unrest (the fact that over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is under the age of 24 with few economic prospects is a cause for worry). Aid is an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster.

Dambisa Moyo

My own opinion was based on a few books I had read on the subject of African development back in 2000, as part of research for a fictional short story about a West African stowaway girl, inspired by real stories I heard from a Ukrainian sailor. I never finished writing it - in part, because everybody who heard about it thought I was crazy. The ideas were too unorthodox for it to be published anywhere - because most people have unrealistic stereotypes and aren't willing to learn. So I found other things to do with my time.

Comrades, how often have we heard the left compare themselves to Robin Hood "Because he stole from the rich and gave to the poor."

Yet if you read the story, you see that Robin stole excess tax revenue back from the government and returned it to the oppressed taxpayers.

That would make Robin a conservative Republican.

_________________

Ooooooh, I dunno...He wasn't called "Robbin' Hood" for nuthin'. Get what I mean? The name says it all. I'm only sayin' that takin' from the "rich" and givin' it to the "poor."...well, that sounds really cool, right? Howsomever, a robber's a robber, and a hood's a hood, and a pomofo's a pomofo. No?

Oh! Good God!...Ya GOT me! I just love you guys! O.K., I admit I was just trying to "sneak back in" and start talking again, hoping no one would notice. I was worried about the post I sent to Red Square, personally, not understanding the POP (I said POS) thing. So, I just jammed it into the reply thing. So off-topic. I thought you would drop me, right there! I just love this wonderful place. I'm finding things in myself I wasn't so sure I had. Thanks for this forum. I will do my best to live up to your faith in me and the standards you have set. I have always been inspired by those who are better than me, so to speak. Such wonderful contributors! Funny, isn't it, that even though I have an anonymous "handle"...Pamalinsky, I take seriously what I say here, and don't want to make an ass of myself, or others. I think I am actually learning how to write! I find this very exciting. Thank you!

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology. ~ Ayn Rand

Ex-president Obama declares Irma "Hurricane of Peace," urges not to jump to conclusions and succumb to stormophobia

CNN: Trump reverses Obama's executive order banning hurricanes

ISIS claims responsibility for a total solar eclipse over the lands of American crusaders and nonbelievers

When asked if they could point to North Korea on a map many college students didn't know what a map was

CNN: We must bring America into the 21st century by replacing the 18th century Constitution with 19th century poetry

Pelosi: 'We have to impeach the president in order to find out what we impeached him for'

BREAKING: As of Saturday July 8, 2017, all of Earth's ecosystems have shut down as per Prince Charles's super scientific pronouncement made 96 months ago. Everything is dead. All is lost. Life on Earth is no more.

DNC to pick new election slogan out of four finalists: 'Give us more government or everyone dies,' 'Vote for Democrats or everyone dies,' 'Impeach Trump or everyone dies,' 'Stop the fearmongering or everyone dies'

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" is humanity's last chance to save the Earth before it ends five years ago

Experts: The more we embrace diversity the more everything is the same

Study: Many non-voters still undecided on how they're not going to vote

The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush

Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food

China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"

Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'

Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%

America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith

Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine

Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET

Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths

Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'

Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State

President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise